If you thought the 14 point home-favorite Giants could only beat themselves Sunday, then they just delivered a self-smackdown, a boomerang beatdown, a masochistic monstrosity of confidence-deflating football.
Suddenly, the high flying Giants have to pick themselves up off the carpet and rebuild their self esteem from scratch. Their dominant D has been a wellspring of optimism all season long,...

Talk to any Mets fan about the managerial vacancy and the words “Wally Backman” will undoubtedly pepper the conversation. ”Toughness”, “aggressiveness” and “hustle” are the words associated with Backman's playing tenure in Flushing, words which sound great in the context of a manager, particularly coming off the reactive and often backpedaling s...

Big Blue has cut a swath through the NFL. Four opposing quarterbacks have gotten crushed and fled the game with injury so far this season. (Matt Moore of the Panthers, Jay Cutler of the Bears, Drew Stanton of the Lions, and Tony Romo of the Cowboys). You can basically add Charlie Whitehurst of the Seahawks to the victims list as he was grossly humiliated and emotionally traumatized as he ...

With the hiring of J.P. Ricciardi as a special assistant to the newly hired GM Sandy Alderson, the Mets now have not one but two general managers with extensive big league experience at the position. The message of these hiring is clear: no more will the Mets be a proving ground for an Omar Minaya to figure out what makes a winning GM.
These experienced new hires represent a higher level of a...

The emotional high on which the Giants came into the bye week, following the smoking of Dallas, has now dissipated. A week of staying at home playing video games and eating home cooked meals has removed the hunger that drove New York to four straight wins. The desperate and angry Seahawks, fresh off last week's humiliation at the hands of the embarrassment-inducing Raiders, will jump all ov...

There's no signs of the Giants slowing down. And yet, you know the Cowboys aren't going to lose every home game this season. No reason to think that Big Blue, now confident and capable on both sides of the ball, can't beat the law of averages by piling another loss on the drain-circling Cowboys.
There are big names on the injury report this week, but it looks like Justin Tuck, Osi Umenyiora...

The Giants defensive front was the most overhyped unit the NFL last season. But in 2010 they are finally coming into their own. Tuck, Umenyiora, Canty and Cofield are all having excellent seasons so far and now with some added confidence and a couple of dominant performances under their belts, opposing offenses have the right to remain scared. Anything they say can and will be used agains...

“He'll leave you in there maybe longer than he should… but he believes you're gonna get out of it”
-Derek Lowe, on Braves manager Bobby Cox
Fateful words from Lowe, who talked his way into remaining in the game when Cox came out to pay him a visit on the mound in the seventh inning last night. Lowe had turned in a masterful and hitless six innings but had nothing left in the...

Rick Ankiel, with one glorious swing of the bat and a magical flight of the ball deep into the San Francisco night, and into the ocean, earned the Braves a gutsy and fearless win. No one better symbolizes courage and resilience than Ankiel, who has bounced back from an utter meltdown as a pitcher to become an unlikely offensive hero, a moment he described as the pinnacle of his career to date...

Tim Lincecum's masterful performance last night completely silenced Atlanta's bats, and no other phase of the game could make up for it – not Derek Lowe's excellent game and certainly not the Braves suspect defense. While the Braves must hope to get on the board against Jonathan Sanchez, the Giants awake this morning with dreams of their pitching carrying them to the World Series.
Other...

Last Sunday night the Giants felt a whole lot better about themselves after sacking Jay Cutler 87 times. Actually it was a mere dozen sacks by the Big Blue D against the shell-shocked Bears signal caller, and every one of them essential as the Giants sputtering offense was barely able to scrape a few points together to get an edge on Chicago. So while its great the Giants looked good for a ...

The Mets made it official yesterday, firing manager Jerry Manuel and GM Omar Minaya. These moves are good for the organization, perhaps even vital. The Manuel/Minaya path is much less appealing than the great unknown, and now we are on that dark and mysterious path into the great unknown.
In what might have seemed like a cute throwaway comment, Minaya told reporters he “”won't m...